


serpent

by thalmor



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trauma Recovery, if you like vicereeve pelidil you should really really skip this one, naemon would do so back dont worry, prince naemon rescued from coldharbour, yet another fic of kallalon being willing to die for naemon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28945146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalmor/pseuds/thalmor
Summary: prince naemon decides he wants to know how it ended for his vicereeve
Relationships: Prince Naemon/Kallalon, Prince Naemon/Original Male Character(s), Trans Male/Trans Male
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	serpent

“How did he die?”  


Kallalon stopped, fingers freezing momentarily amidst the softness of Naemon’s hair. Naemon didn’t seem to move much, merely sitting as Kallalon braided and played with his pale strands. His brow furrowed, and not wanting to subject either of them to awkwardness he resumed. His Prince was soft in the dusk lamplight. He let himself smile at that, savoring good spirits. Still, what was worth to good spirits if Naemon wasn't in them? The other man remained still. “Who?” Kallalon softly asked.  


_I guess I should know._ Still, he didn’t want to assume. Some topics were best not brought up without Naemon’s anticipation.  


“Pelidil.” The name was sharp, and hurt like a driven knife, and the most of what was done to Kallalon was witnessed atrocities and a grueling battle. Much of the harm was now healed, only known with the touch of his fingers and a look in certain lighting. That was for him, but for Naemon, he well knew it was harder to heal scars that weren’t so visible. Kallalon felt the pain for him. His chest suddenly twisted in anxiety, yet his fingers kept to it.  


“How he died,” Kallalon echoed, slowly and carefully. Naemon remained still, but looking over his narrow shoulders from where he stood behind and above him saw twitching hands.  


“Yes,” Naemon’s head dipped, just a little bit. “You killed him?” He already knew much of this. Perhaps not every detail, moreso just the bare minimum of battle happening and Kallalon ridding the world of such rot as the late Vicereeve. Kallalon never went further in indulging. The man left scars both outside and inside the Prince and the years were slow to heal them.  


Kallalon was yet to be done with the braid placed at the center of his Prince’s head, but he decided he would be for now, hands falling as he maneuvered around the chair to the vanity. Naemon’s posture seemed to straighten as he was taken aback by Kallalon’s met gaze. He wasn’t crying, but his eyes seemed to glint and his jaw was locked, too locked, locked in the way he did when he shuts down and masks his pain. But Kallalon wasn’t a parasitic court noble, nor a bureaucrat who took out their anger towards Ayrenn as painful reminders and arguments for all Naemon has lost. “Naemon,” His voice was gentle as he reassured. “It’s alright. Do you really wish to know?”  


His eyes closed as he pondered, before he opened them again. “Yes.” The hands clasped neatly on his lap separated as he opened his palm to the ceiling in invitation. Kallalon took it, and held tightly. Their matching rings of gold shone on contact. Naemon was slow to move his lips. “Did he bleed?”  


Time seemed to freeze where they touched, and went back. _Steel clashed with wood, and rain left the dark wood of the Maormer ship slippery. Kallalon navigated deftly, dodging fire and lightning from the Vicereeve and Maormer guards alike. He always used his emotions to channel into his fighting skills but his sword still seemed heavier that day, harder to swing. He remembered the paleness of Naemon’s still body and slashed upwards and forwards. Pelidil hissed in pain, stumbling to gain back his footing as he ran his hand through his face dripping with blood._ “Yes.”  


Naemon pressed on. “What was final?” Kallalon swallowed deeply, and recounted.  


“I had already put down the Maormer besides him, two.” _Lightning struck, and struck again. Serpents in the sea around them let out terrible screeches. He decided against mentioning the ways the Vicereeve used his name, but every single instance seemed to be its own weapon. Pelidil cried that the Prince would be his vengeance, and Kallalon finally wavered, slipped, only saving himself by slamming into the base of the ship’s mast. By pure luck, the hand with his shield flew up and blocked a bolt of fire. The rain soaking it steamed and misted on contact._ “I came after him, we fell to the ground.”  


_The only thing between the end of Kallalon’s sword and Pelidil was a shield of magic formed out of desperation. Pelidil winced at the weight atop of him, and grimaced as the right side of his face submerged in water in an attempt to avoid the point. He barely deserved the liberty, but still Kallalon hissed. “Do you have any last words?”_  


_“You will never stop Naemon.” Naemon was no longer on Tamriel at that point. In Coldharbour he rotted, while the worst of him ran amok, bitterness and resentment all bundled into a shell of a body that destroyed all in his rage. Kallalon knew, and so did the mistake of an elf below him. A part of his mind wondered if Pelidil still felt the spit from the risen Shade on his cheek, or if its corrupted words still seared him, a chained wolf biting back. He hoped so. Perhaps that shell of Naemon expressed to the Vicereeve what the real one couldn't.  
_

_The half-Maormer’s shield was tossed beside them at this point, and with both hands Kallalon gripped the hilt of his sword. With a noise of anger, he tried to drive it downwards, shut the man’s mouth with his own gore. It rebuffed. Pelidil’s shield could only be held for so long, yet it remained. His mind was blank. He could only feel fury and grief. He was there as Naemon’s face drained of blood beneath the Orrery. The so few times they held hands, the Prince’s hands were warm, soft. They were cold, then. Kallalon cried, but the tears blended with the torrent of freezing rain. “You’ll never touch him again.”_  


_A blow. Pelidil heaved beneath him, and tried a final time to kick Kallalon off. Kallalon was light, but fit and muscled, and he held strong. The Vicereeve fixed the younger man with his gaze and snarled. “And neither will you.”  
_

_The shield gave way. Kallalon stabbed it downwards and pressed it into his chest, through the finely sewn yet now finely soaked Altmeri robes, through his heart. Pelidil writhed in his dying gasps of air, and Kallalon twisted so that the sword shoved deeper. “Die,” Kallalon screamed, repeated. “Rot.” The Vicereeve would. That was certain. Kallalon's breastplate was too thick to pierce, but still the evil mer's nails scratched and scraped, until they couldn't anymore. His hands fell limp.  
_

__

__

_Vicereeve Pelidil took his last breath.  
_

“I stabbed him between his ribs.”  


Naemon was in front of him, real, and he wasn’t a corpse, nor a lich. His face was full of color, his hands warm again, his eyes more often sad than Kallalon would like, but still alive. Since his rescue, he even smiles, and in all of their introversion they were closer to his eyes than any smiles in Auridon or Grahtwood ever were. His eyes told of vindication but there were still no such smiles then. Kallalon laid his hand atop his other. Naemon inhaled, and squeezed his love’s pale teal fingers. “What happened to his body?”  


_It took a while to clean his sword of the blood. Even when the stain was long gone, he scrubbed and scrubbed, as if the more the steel of his sword shone the less of Pelidil would still linger in existence._  


“The ship was numbered, and I was urged to make it quick,” Kallalon shut his eyes, bowing his head slightly. “I picked him up and dropped him into the sea to the serpents.”  


Naemon, who had spent much of the time in an unfocused gaze, let his eyes widen at that. “And he was…?”  


“Yes, he was.”  


He knew very little of the culture of half of his blood, but he still heard much of the honor of the water. Being left to it in death, that was expected as a resting place, and respected in its right. Perhaps he should’ve left him to burn instead. Or go down with the ship of the race he merely sought to use for his own gain, as he did for all he came in contact with.  


But, Pelidil was not a Maormer. The bodies of giant sea serpents in the Abecean Sea was no place for an Altmer’s remains, at least not one of respect and moral.  


Naemon took his husband’s example and let his other hand join in. His face tilted to the ceiling as he held back tears. Kallalon was ready to handle the fact that Naemon still felt too afraid to cry openly in front of him as his husband, but only then did he realize that he was likely staving off tears for his own sake. Naemon hated crying almost more than the society he was raised in did. That, and certain topics were much too painful to emotionally unravel at the thought of. Even in death the Vicereeve undid him. “He’s gone?” Naemon wanted to be sure.  


“Yes.” Kallalon swore. He’d continue swearing until his final days, and they held eachother’s hands as if they would never again be able to. “I watched him take his last breath, Naemon.”  


Before anything could overflow from Naemon’s sore and stinging eyes, Kallalon suddenly rose to embrace. The elf shook in his arms, and any remaining questions were silent, only asked in the warm tears against Kallalon’s skin.  


_Will he ever hurt me again?_  


Kallalon felt the quivering of fingers as they clung to the back of his head, and Naemon buried his nose deep into his neck.  


“No.” Kallalon promised.

**Author's Note:**

> if only tamriel had therapy


End file.
